


remember me (i'm so scared of being left behind)

by heavydiirtysoul



Category: Twenty One Pilots
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Band, Angst, Coma, Eventual Smut, Friends to Lovers, Hospitals, M/M, Minor Character Death, No happy end, joshler - Freeform, you will find an alternative ending in chapter two
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-17
Updated: 2016-11-17
Packaged: 2018-08-31 14:53:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,170
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8582689
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heavydiirtysoul/pseuds/heavydiirtysoul
Summary: Coma, noun;A state of unconsciousness in which a person cannot be awakened; fails to respond normally to painful stimuli, light, or sound; lacks a normal wake-sleep cycle; and does not initiate voluntary actions.Coma, noun;Painfully boring when you're stuck in a hospital and nobody can hear, see or touch you.Not as bad if you have company, though.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> come talk to me on [tumblr](http://www.spookykittyjosh.tumblr.com)!
> 
> the song that this fic came to life to: [bastille - the draw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QL2UQkmBMP4)

"Good morning, sweetheart!"

His mother leans down and presses a kiss to his forehead. The flowers in her arm rustle as they get squished between his body and her chest, and she shakes her head apologetically.

"Sorry. Let me put them into the vase real quick. Gosh, would you look at that! The others really don't look pretty anymore."

She fiddles the sad excuse of dying flowers she brought last week out of the vase, gets rid of them in the trashcan by the door. The new flowers are arranged carefully.

"Much better."

It really isn't, Josh thinks. The room still looks like a morgue, even with the flowers - maybe because it could as well _be_ a morgue, with his dying body cold on the bed. Of course he can't really know for sure if he's dying, but he has run out of most of the other options.

Her weight leaves a soft dent in the mattress, but Josh knows she has lost a lot of it lately, can see it when her small hands take his, patting it softly as she smiles. Her happiness is fake, he can tell when her smile isn't genuine, and the one plastered on her face seems like a bad parody of the way she used to smile before. He doesn't understand why everybody always tried to pretend to be happy around him, it's not as if they didn't have a reason to be sad. 

His mum's face is so sunken, it almost looks like it's stretched right across her skull. It distorts her smile even more, like a grimace. 

"So, how are you today, love? The weather is still awful, I'm not going to lie to you. There's a lot of snow. Nowadays it seems like it will never stop!"

She laughs a fake laugh, and Josh rolls his eyes.

"Your dad had trouble getting to work every morning this week because it had snowed so much overnight. But we're dealing. He has put snow chains on the tires, and that seems to work quite well, or so he tells me. We don't want another accident to happen because we're not prepared, right?"

Another laugh, and this time Josh is offended for real. You don't laugh about an accident that has put your son in a hospital. She seems to realize it the same second, chokes, stops laughing, pretends it never happened. Keeps talking.

"You know, I haven't been going out much lately, I try to focus on your brother and helping him study. God knows he needs any help he can get."

She never stops petting his hand, bony fingers with an unhealthy, somehow blue-ish shade that make Josh feel sick to the stomach.

"By the way, Jordan has been doing quite well too, though he's very busy. His exams are coming up, you know, and he's actually studying this time around, so we're all hopeful he will do better than last year."

Silence falls for a moment, but soon gets interrupted by his mum getting up from the bed again, pacing around the room nervously, wringing her hands as if she has trouble figuring out what to say next. It makes him cringe; it's awful to watch.

"I'm sorry I haven't been visiting as frequently as before. I really am. But there's a lot going on at the moment, and the weather... It's a bad excuse, I know, and I'm really sorry. I hope the nurses are taking good care of you."

She just stands there, stares, eyes sad and lifeless as she inhales sharply, suppressing a sob. He can't stand to see her cry, but it's been a while since he actually saw any tears. It seems like everyone around him is slowly, but surely giving up, and the numbness covering every rare visit definitely feels worse than the sadness and devastation from before.

"Alright. This isn't the time to cry, I'm sorry, my dear. You shouldn't see me like this."

Josh snorts. If this wasn't the time to cry, then what was?

Back on the bed, his chest is slowly rising and falling with a steady rhythm. There's no reaction to her words - big fucking surprise.

His mum checks her watch casually, tries to hide it as if he'd be offended upon her behaviour. He really isn't. He wouldn't want to be around himself either if he was her. The whole room reeks of death.

"I'm sorry that I can't stay longer today. I have two kids coming over for tutoring, so I need to get going."

She presses another kiss to his forehead, picks up his hand again, pecks a kiss to his palm too, her eyes focused on his face urgently.

"Please just come back to us, Josh. I know you haven't given up fighting yet. Please just keep fighting. You're so strong, baby, I know you can do it, I know you want to come back."

She withdraws with another sob, clutches an empty hand to her chest while the other holds onto her purse with white knuckles. Josh wishes he could do something, tell her that he's trying, that there's nothing in this world he'd like to do more than to open his eyes and tell her that he's fine, he's here, that everything will be alright.

But instead, he sits silently on the unoccupied bed next to his and watches her leave with a last unreciprocated wave of her hand.

The monitors keep beeping, the respirator pumps air into his lungs steadily, and Josh watches his useless body lie there in the bed, covered by blankets that can't hide how thin he's gotten despite being tube fed. He's been pale before, but the white transparency of his skin exposing the cold blue veins lying underneath freaks even himself out. I look almost as bad as mum, he thinks.

With a sigh, he forces himself to get up from the empty bed, hovers over his own body, staring suspiciously with narrowed eyes. Sometimes he thinks if he just stared hard enough he could will it to move, will it to open its eyes and just wake up, but he has tried that before and he knows for sure that it doesn't work.

He just stands like that for a few minutes, arms crossed in front of his chest as he inspects his body the way a mechanic would inspect a broken car engine. Which is a pretty accurate comparison, he thinks, seeing that he's just about as broken. 

Nurses rush in, change his IV, puff up his pillow and shuffle his body to come to lie on its side. He knows they're doing this so he doesn't get any pressure marks on his spine, on the spots where his vertebrae press into his paper thin skin from the inside like he has the back plates of a dragon, just maybe a little less cool. 

He watches silently as they leave, his body now somehow slumped up sideways against the matress, and he thinks he would probably be uncomfortable like this, but he can't really tell them anyways, so he just keeps watching with disapproval. 

The first weeks he had tried to contact them, screamed, yelled, tried to throw around stuff so someone would notice him, but he had found out soon enough that he was pretty much a ghost. Invisible to everyone, his hands just grabbing thin air when he tried to touch anyone, even when he tried to touch inanimate objects -- it was frustrating, and he had cried a lot, devastated and desperate and alone, stuck in what he called the Inbetween by now. Giving it a name had made it less scary, somehow.

At first, his family had visited everyday. They sat around his bed, his mum always holding his hand, and everyone had put on this mask of forced happiness that made Josh groan just by thinking about it. There was no damn reason to be happy, yet everyone seemed to be oh so keen on making it seem like this wasn't the shittiest situation ever. 

His sister had visited alone most of the time, bringing his iPod and headphones and playing music for him, some of his favorite albums, some new stuff, and those were the days when the crushing weight of his life wasn't as bad. 

She had stopped visiting after two months, and even though his mum kept making excuses for all of his siblings, he knew they had simply given up hope, had given up trying to get through to him, and he can't blame them at all. He is close to giving up himself, close to just calling it quits, even though he has no idea what exactly that would even mean. It wasn't like he'd never seen the bright light, the tunnel or whatever people described when they talked about near death experiences, but it was never meant for him, so he actually had no idea if he could leave this place even if he wanted to.

Josh shoos away the thoughts with a wave of his hand. He is still standing next to his bed, eyes unfocused as he stares into the void. The worst thing by now is probably the boredom that came with being alone. There are no books he could read since he can't pick them up or turn the pages, the tv in his room is never on anymore and watching hospital staff, relatives of other people or even other patients is only so entertaining for a while.

"Hello? Hello, anyone? Can anyone hear me?"

Josh's eyes find a figure wandering the corridor towards his room, an old woman still dressed in a hospital gown, the mark of where the IV used to sit in her arm still red on the inside of her elbow. He sighs. Time for work, he thinks with cynism, making his way over to her with a soft smile.

"Hi Miss. I'm Josh, can I help you?"

The woman almost seems scared, pressing up against the wall as she watches him with big, teary eyes, red from crying.

"Who are you!", she shouts and swats his offered hand away, and Josh sighs again. He has seen this so many times, he knows how it will go down, knows what to say.

"I'm Josh. I'm an angel, and I'm here to help you to the other side."

Of course, he is far from being an angel, but that's the explanation that seems to help people the most to calm down, and as always, it works.

"So I'm.. I'm dead?"

"Yes, ma'am. Sorry about that."

She doesn't look as scared anymore. It always happened like this, the moment they learned they were dead, all stress and anxiety and struggle seemed to leave their body with a soft exhale. They relaxed, seemed to accept it without any further questions, as if they had known before, but had fought the realization. Josh envies them, envies the way they can leave and go to wherever it is you go when you die while he is stuck inbetween worlds.

"Come on, Miss. Let's go. We'll say goodbye to your family and then you can leave."

It had took him some time to figure out a way to get those poor souls to leave. One had been wandering the halls crying for all of three days, haunting Josh with their weeping and their screaming until finally, their family had showed up to say goodbye.

He offers an arm to the elder lady which she takes gracefully, a thankful smile on her face, and she looks so peaceful that Josh feels the sudden urge to cry. He wants that, wants the peace and calmness of the unavoidable end, but he never seems to be able to grasp it, always slightly out of reach.

He helps the lady along to where he assumes she had been before, down the hall and past the nurses' room. He thinks he remembers her face from one of his countless strolls around the hospital, so he guides her to a room on the left side of the corridor, and luckily for him, he finds the right room at once.

The woman lets go of his arm, her eyes already warm and glowing as she slowly approaches her family. There are seven people, some kids and their parents, all of them quietly crying as they are gathered around the bed, and Josh has to avert his eyes. These moments are so intimate, so personal, he can't take it. 

Sitting down outside of the room, he pulls his legs close to his chest, hugging them as he waits for the familiar, deep vibrato of the light that was unevitably to come. It takes about five minutes, the arms of the clock only moving ever so slow as he waits, and then he can feel it, soft and peaceful and so endlessly bright that he has to screw his eyes shut, yet he can still feel the hot warmth pouring from the room, painting the backs of his eyelids stinging red. 

As quick as it had appeared the light vanishes again, leaving the hospital cold and grey as he hangs his head low, resting it between his knees. Just another death, just another someone going to where they belonged now.

He doesn't stick around for the aftermath, just gets up and makes his way back to his room.

Unsurprisingly, he finds himself in exactly the same position as before, squished against the pillows, but now, the bed next to him is occupied. 

The boy can't be much older than he is, with mouse brown hair, a soft face with almost feminine, delicate features, and even the multiple bruises and freshly sewn close cuts can't hide his attractiveness. 

Josh just stares, studies him. He is in a coma too, apparently, seeing that the get up of his bed is pretty much the same as his, with a respirator and heart rate monitor and the IV. Josh had always wondered why he'd never met any other coma patients, considering that there were quite a few around, but he had given up pondering when he realized he'd never get an answer to any of his questions anyways. Maybe those other bastards just aren't as unlucky as he is.

There are only two people there besides the nurse, an older couple, which Josh figures are probably the boys' grandparents. They look as devastated and shocked as his family used to look back when he had had the accident, and the nurse explains to them in a slow, calming voice that the first 24 hours are the most critical, but they are welcome to stay in the waiting room and she'd inform them if there were any news.

Josh remembers his own first day here, the way the anxiety and fear creeped out of the waiting room thick enough to almost be visible, the way chaos broke loose when the doctors told his family he hadn't woken up yet, but they'd keep him monitored, it would all be fine. At least he was stable, they shouldn't give up hope. He wouldn't wish any of that on anyone else, but he had witnessed the scene over and over again whenever a new patient came in. 

"What about his parents? His brother?"

Josh gets keen-eared.

"Mr. Joseph is still in surgery. He's had mutliple internal bleedings, a collapsed lung, broken ribs and a fractured skull. They're still operating on him."

Silence, then: "I'm sorry, but Mrs. Joseph..."

The older woman breaks down, clutches onto her husband, sobs, while the man looks just numb, eyes empty and cold and dead.

"She didn't make it", he says matter of factly, as if he is announcing what kind of tie he is going to wear today.

The nurse shakes her head.

"I'm very sorry for your loss. But you need to be strong now, for Mr. Joseph and for Tyler. They need you now."

Tyler, Josh assumes, has to be the boy in the bed next to his.

"Zack is currently getting an MRT done to check for any internal injuries, but it looks like he's gotten off easy under the circumstances. He has a broken arm, but he will be fine if the MRT results are negative."

The woman is still crying, and her husband guides her out of the room, follows the nurse to the waiting area, and the room falls silent again except for the now two monitors beeping with unsynched heartbeat rhythms. 

Josh keeps staring, half leaning over the body of the boy, watching and waiting as if he was going to suddenly open his eyes and everything were back to normal. He knows it doesn't work that way, but God does he wish it would.

After what feels like hours, the nurse is back, checking on both Tyler's and his vitals, then sighing softly.

"So young", she says, an almost hopeless expression on her face. Then she sits down on the matress, lets a careful hand cup Tyler's cheek. There's no reaction, of course. "You need to fight. Fight your way back to us. I know you can do it. Be strong. Your family needs you to stay strong."

Josh knows the nurse, a warm-hearted, kind woman who's been working here for years from what he's gathered, and he can't even begin to imagine how many tragedies she has had to witness while working here. He knows he couldn't do it, if he was in her shoes. All those deaths... He would've broken down ages ago.

But then again, the human mind had an ancredible range of coping mechanisms, and if he can deal with living as a shadow of himself, maybe he isn't as weak as he makes himself out to be.

 

***

 

24 hours pass, and nothing changes. Tyler is still motionless on the bed, chest rising and falling automatically as the respirator works its magic with a sick rattling noise that he has gotten used to weeks ago. 

Tyler's grandparents are sitting on chairs next to the bed, and Josh joins them on his own chair, next to his own bed. He has nothing better to do anyways, so he can as well stay with them.

Nobody says anything, and the silence is crushing. 

Nurses rush in and out of the room, now checking on Tyler more frequently since he has just passed the critical time, and he knows they still hope for him to wake up - or maybe they just want to seem busy while his grandparents are watching over him, Josh can't tell.

After what was probably the longest hour of his life, a doctor hurries in, looking all professional with his half-moon shaped glasses and a clipboard in his hand. Josh can't recall ever having seen him before. 

He's weirdly invested in the familys' story by now, so he listens in. It's hard to avoid eavesdropping anyways when people always assumed they were alone, because, well, they couldn't see him.

"Mr. and Mrs. Joseph?"

The wife almost jumps out of her chair, eyes wild and hopeful.

"Yes, that's us. Is it about Chris? Did he wake up?"

The doctor lets his eyes wander over his notes before checking a box on one of the papers, then looks back up, clicks the pen close and stuffs it into the pocket of his robe. 

"Yes, it's about Mr. Joseph. He's out of surgery, but we had to put him in a medically induced coma so his body can focus all its energy on healing. He is stable for now, and if you want, you can go see him."

The grandfather presses a kiss to Tyler's forehead, and Josh starts to think that this exact gesture is probably the universal way to show affection to a relative in a coma. He has lost count of how many forehead kisses he had to witness these last few months. The thought makes him chuckle, but he chokes it back, knowing it's inappropriate even if nobody can hear him. 

The two leave with the doctor, and he is alone with the boy again.

He doesn't look any better than when he had seen him first, the bruises still angry purple and blossoming on his cheekbones and the bridge of his nose, his whole face strangely distorted with the thick respirator tube sticking out from his mouth. Not that Josh in the other bed looks any better, but at least all his physical injuries have healed weeks ago.

"So, guess we're stuck here together, hm?"

His voice echoes emptily in the room, and he almost screams in terror when someone answers.

"Who are you?"

Josh jumps out of his chair, eyes blown wide with shock as he stares at the person across the room.

"Tyler?!"

 

***

 

For a few seconds, they just stare at each other, Josh still full on panicking, Tyler quiet and small and lost, and then they start talking at the same time.

"How can you see me?"

"What are you doing here?"

Another silence, then Josh gestures for Tyler to start.

"You can see me."

A statement, not a question, but Josh nods. "Yeah."

"How? Are you like.. a psychic?"

Josh chuckles. "No. I'm... Look, that's me." 

He points to his lifeless body half-hidden in blankets, and Tyler's eyes follow his gesture slowly. He looks like a caged animal, ready to run, scared out of his mind, but he's surprisingly calm.

"Okay", he says, and Josh shakes his head. He had expected more of a reaction.

"I'm in a coma. You are too."

There's really no way to sugarcoat this, so Josh figures it's best to just give it to Tyler straight.

"Okay." A pause, then: "So how do we get out of this?"

"Don't you think I would've woken up already if I knew that?"

The question comes out harsher than intended, and Tyler flinches, shrinks. Josh regrets his words immediately, takes a careful step towards the other boy, hands reached out in front of his body in a placating manner.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to scare you. I haven't figured it out yet, I'm - there's no manual for this whole thing, unfortunately." 

Now it's his turn to pause, give Tyler time to adjust to this new information. When he remains silent, Josh continues.

"I'm Josh. And you're Tyler, right?"

Tyler nods, and he seems to relax the tiniest bit. Josh stuffs his hands into the pockets of the jeans he's been wearing for three months now, but they never get dirty. Dirty clothes are not a thing in the Inbetween, apparently.

"So this happens to every coma patient? Have you met anyone else like us?"

Josh shakes his head, sighs, sits down on his bed.

"You're the first that's not dead."

"What?!"

"That came out wrong, sorry - I mean, when people die, they pass through here sometimes. But they leave again, go to the next... realm, or whatever."

Tyler shakes his head, overwhelmed, then makes his way over to his own bed, eyes his body suspiciously. 

"I think I was in an accident."

Josh bites back a 'no shit, sherlock' and nods.

"Yeah."

"What about my parents? My brother? Are they okay?"

He can see the new wave of panic in Tyler's face as he realizes that he possibly isn't the only one injured, hears it in his voice. He really doesn't want to be the one to tell him about his mother, but he doesn't want Tyler to pick it up from a doctor or his grandparents by chance either.

"Your dad is in a coma too, but the doctors seem positive that he'll make it. Your brother is fine. We can go look for them later if you want."

"My mother. You didn't say anything about my mum. Tell me about my mum, Josh."

Josh knows that Tyler already knows the answer from the way his voice is thick and coarse and choked, and he squirms uncomfortably, can't look Tyler in the eye.

"I'm so sorry, Tyler."

Tyler chokes for real this time, a pained sob worming its way out of the depths of his chest, and he scrambles to the floor, body shaking with the unbearable horror of knowing he will never see his mum again, and Josh doesn't know what to do. He just keeps sitting on the bed, watches Tyler fall apart with no means to help him whatsoever. It's heartbreaking, and the sobs don't seem to stop, just keep getting more violent, more like a hiccup that makes Josh want to disappear into thin air just so he doesn't have to hear it anymore. 

"I can't - can't bel - believe she's - she's..." 

"I know. I'm so sorry."

Josh is on the floor now, a knee-jerk reaction, and without a second thought, he pulls the smaller boy close into a tight hug, let's the whimpers and sobs vibrate through his chest as the other boy cries in his arms. It's the least I can do, he thinks, smoothing a cold hand down Tyler's back, the tiniest of comforts in a situation so terrible that it could easily break a person.

They sit like this for a while, Tyler's sobs slowly ebbing down to quiet whimpers, and Josh finally inches back a bit to give him space, see if he can compose himself without the anchor of his arms around him. For the moment, it seems like he has calmed down a bit, and Josh sits back, leans against the frame of Tyler's bed. He knows there's still a long way to go, but he's afraid they'll have more than enough time to walk it together while being stuck here.

"Do you want to visit your brother and your dad?"

Tyler nods, wipes his eyes with the sleeves of his sweater, sniffs softly. His eyes are still red and puffy, there's patches of dark pink everywhere on his swollen face, but he has regained some of his composure. Josh helps him stand with a steady hand. This isn't any different from guiding someone to the light, he tells himself. Tyler could wake up any second, for all he knows. He hopes so, at least, for all it's worth; even though the taunting voice in his head tells him otherwise.

They walk silently, Tyler's socked feet barely making a sound on the cold laminate of the corridors while Josh's sneakers squeal awfully with every step. It's awkward. 

Josh takes him to the huge board hung up at the nurses' room where every patient is written down neatly, and Tyler points to his fathers' name when he finds it. 

"Room 314", he reads, a questioning gaze to Josh, and Josh nods.

"I know where that is. Come on."

They have to wait at the door to the stairwell since neither of them can open it themselves, but after a few minutes of awkward silence, someone opens the door, and they sneak through it quickly before the door can fall close again.

The third floor is one beneath them, and after another short waiting time, they finally get through the door. 

"314 is the right wing", Josh says matter of factly, if only to say anything, because the silence is starting to get really uncomfortable and he just really wants to talk, now that he finally has the chance to have a conversation that isn't with himself or someone who's dead.

"Okay."

Tyler really isn't a talkative person, Josh decides. Of course he'd be lucky enough to get stuck with the only shy coma patient in the damn hospital. But then again he can't really hold it against him. He is going through a lot, and Josh knows he wouldn't want to have small talk with a stranger either if he was in Tyler's shoes.

They wander in silence again until Tyler stops dead in his tracks, eyes fixed on the black plastic numbers pinned next to the door on his right. 

"That's the room."

"Yeah."

Tyler doesn't show the slightest inclination to enter the room, even though the door is wide open. There isn't much to see inside, just the typical hospital curtains drawn close around the two beds, the soft beeping of the heartrate monitors and the respirators.

"Hey."

Josh reaches out a careful hand and rests it on Tyler's shoulder, can feel the pulse of his racing heart even through his bony shoulderblades. 

"We don't have to do this right now. We can wait."

"No", Tyler shakes his head, straightening up, bracing himself, exhaling sharply. "I want to see him."

"Are you sure you -", Josh starts, but Tyler's already through the door and disappears behind one of the curtains.

He follows with a sigh and a roll of his eyes. He really doesnt want to deal with another breakdown, but surprisingly, he finds Tyler calm and collected and sitting on his dad's bed.

"He's alive", he says, breathily, trying hard to hold back tears, Josh can tell. 

"He is. He's had multiple injuries, but the doctors said his surgery went well. They put him in a coma to give his body time to heal."

Tyler nods, seems a lot more peaceful suddenly. For a second, Josh almost gets scared he just died and only feels peaceful because of that, but Tyler's voice interrupts his oncoming panic.

"He will be fine."

Josh doesn't have the heart to correct him, doesn't have the heart to tell him that his dad isn't out of the woods just yet.

"Let's go see my brother."

They repeat the procedure from before, check on the board, wait for the staircase door to open, the short second of anxiety before Tyler storms into the room where his brother is supposed to be.

Only that he isn't there.

"It's room 505, right?"

Josh checks.

"Yeah. He's supposed to be here. I don't know where -"

He's interrupted by Tyler's grandparents pushing Zack into the room in a wheelchair, and they all look so devastated and tired that Josh thinks he can almost taste the emotions flirring from their bodies on his lips.

"Grams!", Tyler shouts and lunges forward, and it's too late for Josh to warn him.

He watches Tyler stumble through the figure of his grandmother, watches him turn pale and shiver and flinch as he crashes against Josh's chest, and Josh's arms close around him out of reflex. He remembers the first time he accidentally walked through someone clear as day, and it's the most awful, mind-shattering experience he's ever made. It's like being pulled through a drain and into a pool of mudd, it punches the air out of your lungs and leaves you cold and shaking and scared and suffocated.

Tyler gasps, and Josh holds him, pressing circles into his back again as Tyler stands stonecold, eyes blown wide with shock, unmoving.

"You can't..." Josh starts, but Tyler just shakes his head, quick, firm, and Josh stops talking.

"I can't touch them", he says after a while, and his voice is so small and toneless that Josh almost gets scared.

"No. Sorry."

Tyler wiggles out of his embrace, and Josh lets him go. 

For a while, they just stand like that, Tyler watching as his grandparents help Zack back into the bed, one arm in a cast, one leg bandaged, and Josh thinks he knows how Tyler is feeling. It's kind of like living in a fishtank, watching the world around you, watching life happen while you're just standing at the sidelines, a spectator. It's the most frustrating thing, and it hurts and sometimes it gets so much that you just want it all to end, because anything would be better than this.

So he slings an arm around Tyler again, steady and with strength he didn't know he possessed, and he holds him while they let the day pass slowly.

 

It's almost midnight when they get back to their room, the halls only dimly lit by the green glow of the emergency exit signs and the single desk lamp in the nurses' room. The hospital is almost eerie around this time of the night, the darkness making everything look gloomy and empty when in reality, they are far from alone.

The only sounds are from the monitors, and sometimes a quiet whimper or moan from another patient breaks the silence, and Josh can see Tyler flinch in his chair with every new noise.

"Can we sleep?"

He's whispering as if he's afraid to wake up his own body lying next to him.

"No", Josh whispers back, "at least I can't. I don't know if you can. Maybe you're different."

"I feel tired", Tyler admits, yawns. Josh sighs. He's been tired for months, but sleep doesn't come. He thinks that maybe if he could just sleep, he'd wake up in that damn hospital bed, this time for real. In his real body. A real person.

"I don't think that's ever going to go away. I'm always tired."

Tyler's yawn is contagious.

"Can we lie down somewhere? I want to lie down at least. My whole body hurts."

"Sure. Let's see if we can find an empty bed. Sometimes the nurses' break room is unlocked, we can try that. They have a couch."

"I don't really get how it works."

"What do you mean?"

Tyler hesitates, then starts again.

"We can't touch people. We can't touch doors or books or anything. But we don't fall through the floor, and we can sit on chairs."

Josh has never given any thought to that, but now that Tyler brings it up, it does seem weird.

"No idea." He's still whispering when they are making their way through the dark hallway. "Maybe we just can't move things? Like, people would be able to see us opening a door. At least they'd see the door move, I guess. But if we just sit or something, people can't really tell?"

Tyler seems to be satisfied with that explanation, even though Josh isn't sure if it's even right. Like he said before, there isn't really a manual to any of this. How To Be A Ghost 101, now that's a book he would love to read sometime.

The door to the break room is unlocked, and they squeeze through the admittedly quite small gap. It's a strange thought, to have to squeeze through a door that would normally just move to give room, but for them, it's like a damn wall.

There's a huge couch and a bunk bed, and there's someone sleeping in the top one, snoring qietly.

"Do we eat?"

Josh wonders where all these questions are coming from now, but he thinks Tyler might just try to distract himself from the bonecrushing exhaustion of the day.

"Can't touch the food."

"Right."

Tyler seems to be even unhappier now, and Josh sighs. 

"Look, I'm sorry this is all so messed up. But hey, you might wake up tomorrow and everything will be fine, alright?"

Tyler nods, but they both can't really believe his words.

Josh flops down onto the couch, leaving Tyler with the bottom bunk bed, but to his surprise, Tyler makes no move to actually lie down. He's just standing in the middle of the room, next to the small table and the couple of chairs scattered around it, and he seems to wait for something.

"What?"

Tyler squirms, fidgets with his sweater.

"I know we don't really know each other, but..."

Josh finally figures out what he wants and scoots over, pats on the seating of the couch.

"Come on, you big baby."

Tyler joins him without a word, presses his back against Josh's chest. It's been a while since Josh has been so close to anyone, and he shuffles around until their legs are entangled completely, his arm thrown over Tyler's waist, and he has to admit that he hasn't been this calm in weeks.

It's good to finally have someone, he thinks, even if it's just for a few days.

 

***

 

A few days turn into a week, and a week turns into two, and Tyler hasn't woken up yet.

They have acquired a kind of rythm throughout the last two weeks, with the frequent visits to Tyler's dad being the most prevalent thing most days. They hang out in his room, watching anxiously as the doctors decide to wake him from the coma, disperse into breathy laughs and messy hugs as he opens his eyes, and for a fleeting second, Josh could've sworn he looked right at Tyler. 

He doesn't tell him, doesn't want him to get his hopes up. Maybe, in that quickly disappearing state between being awake and in a coma, he had been able to see his son, but Josh wasn't sure and he didn't want Tyler to get any ideas when it could've all been just by chance. A glimpse in the right direction, a coincidence, nothing more. 

They spent their nights either cuddled up in bed or lounging lazily in the big entry area downstairs, the one where the TV is always on, even though it's mostly commercials for new therapies and the hospital. As if a hospital needs to advertise, Tyler joked, as if people didn't have to come here if they wanted to or not.

It's Tuesday of week three when they find out there's a swimming pool down in the physical therapy area in the basement, and later that night when nobody's there they try to go for a swim. They're both in their briefs, no feigned awkwardness as they strip down and leave their clothes in a messy pile on one of the chairs. Josh wonders if their clothes are invisble too. Ghost clothes, he snorts. It could be hilarious if their situation wasn't so damn unfunny.

Tyler dips a careful toe into the water.

"It's warm", he says, and his voice is so overwhelmed with confusion that Josh can't help but laugh his husky belly laugh that he hasn't laughed in four months. 

"Well, yeah", he says, still half chuckling. "I guess they don't want their patients to freeze their asses off while they do some fun aqua gymnastics."

He makes a few strange moves, tries to imitate some of the figures he remembers from when he used to do said therapy after a broken ankle, and Tyler is laughing now, too, gigglish and high-pitched and Josh doesn't think he's ever heard a more endearing laugh. He wants to play it on repeat on his iPod forever.

"Okay, let's try this", Tyler finally says, lets his leg slip into the water as he sits down on the brink of the pool, and his face is making the strangest expressions while doing so.

"This is the _weirdest_ feeling ever."

"How so?"

Josh is still standing, not a single limb in the water. He doesn't want to admit he's a little bit afraid.

"It's... I don't think my body is actually in the water. I think the water is... like.." Tyler scrambles for words, furrowed brows. "I think it's the other way round, that the water is in my body. Does that make any sense?"

Josh shakes his head with a chuckle, replies anyways.

"Like when you go through people? Just with water?"

"Yeah. Come on, scaredy pants, just do it. It's.. It's actually pretty cool. Not like it is with people." 

He shudders upon the memory of falling through his grandma, and quickly starts treading water, glistening eyes reflecting the moonlight pouring through the huge front windows. They only go out to the parking lot, but it still looks hauntingly beautiful, the way the clear night sky stretches out eternally over the scenery.

Josh sighs and rolls his eyes, his answer to Tyler coming late.

"I'm not scared."

"Sure."

"I'm not!"

He finally sits down next to Tyler, if only to prove that he isn't scared at all, and the sensation of the water gives him goosbeumps. Tyler is right, it's unlike anything he's ever felt before. The water is drifting through his body, pulling and moving, and it's the strangest thing.

"See?", Tyler says, and his excitement is contagious.

"This is.. I mean, it's odd, but.. yeah, it's cool. Feels good."

"Told you."

They sit quietly, listening to the sound of the tiniest waves splashing against the brink of the pool, the eerie reflections of the water on the walls, and in a rush of he doesn't know what, Josh takes Tyler's hand, holds it.

Tyler doesn't pull back.

"I wonder if we could actually swim or if we would just sink to the ground like stones."

Josh isn't sure if he wants to risk trying.

Tyler however seems sure. He slips forward, into the water, holding onto Josh's hand, and he squeals with glee when he actually treads water, can hold himself at the surface.

"It works!"

"It does?"

"Yeah!"

With a forceful tug on his hand, Tyler pulls him forward and into the pool, and the water swallows him whole. His innate reaction is to scream, to kick until he's back at the surface and can breathe air again, but -

His head breaks through the surface, and he gasps, Tyler still close to him, holding onto his hand for dear life.

"Never do that again", Josh scowls, shakes his head, expecting countless water drops to go flying everywhere, but the soft waves still weaving through his body don't even change their pace. Their bodies have no actual influence on the water, Josh realizes. His hair isn't even wet.

"I want to try something", Tyler says, and Josh thinks by now he has tried enough for the night. They're swimming, after all. No need to tempt fate after they'd gotten a gift as huge as this.

But Tyler doesn't care about Josh's scepticism. He dips his mouth and nose just beneath the surface, stares at Josh wildly, comes back up.

"Dude."

"What now."

"I think we can, like, breathe. Under water."

"No fucking way."

Josh mirrors Tyler's action, glides just beneath the surface.

He's not breathing, but he's not suffocating either. Seems like he doesn't have to breathe at all, which shouldn't be as much of a surprise as it is after the last four months.

Before he knows what's happening, Tyler is tugging him down with him, towards the bottom of the swimming pool, and they float through the seemingly eternal weightlessness of the water, their bodies one with the liquid, and it feels like they are diving into a whole new world.

It's so quiet that the silence is actually ringing in Josh's ears.

And then his feet touch the ground, and he comes to a still, his fingers still intertwined tightly with Tyler's.

A whole new world, he thinks, and then Tyler's lips are on his.

His first reaction is to draw back, pupils blown as he stares at Tyler, because he has expected a lot of things to happen when they agreed on going for a swim, but this really wasn't one of them. 

"I'm sorry", Tyler mouths, and Josh shakes his head.

"No", he mouths back in the silence, "Just surprised."

He can see Tyler didn't catch that, because he cocks his head the way he always does when he doesn't understand something, and Josh gets overrun by an overwhelming rush of affection for this strange boy, in this strange, otherworldly situation, and he locks his free hand in Tyler's neck, draws him close, presses an experimental peck to Tyler's lips. 

It's okay, he decides. This is okay. I can kiss Tyler on the bottom of a swimming pool, and the world doesn't collapse even though it feels like it should.

 

***

 

They're still friends, first and foremost, even though they are now friends that hold hands while visiting Tyler's dad, friends that sometimes kiss when they wander the busy halls of the hospital, friends that let trembling fingers explore the unknown realm that is another man's body. 

They're still friends, first and foremost.

And then they're lovers, and neither of them has really seen it coming.

It's just another eerie night, just another lazy kiss pressed to Tyler's neck on the couch in the empty break room, and then Tyler moans softly into the deep darkness and bucks his hips, and Josh can feel the pressure of a hard on against his thigh.

"Someone's eager", he mumbles, lips against Tyler's neck still, and he can barely hear the soft gasp as he licks there and coaxes another pretty whimper out of Tyler.

"Want you", Tyler whispers, "so much."

"Okay", Josh just says, hand dipping down to give a thorough stroke to Tyler through the fabric of his briefs, and the way Tyler's body convulses beneath his touch has Josh beam with affection. God, he's so in love.

He has no idea what he's doing, but Tyler's body is an open book by now as he squirms and trembles and pushes up into Josh's hand, so he just keeps going, trembling touches as he palms Tyler, and it isn't long before Tyler catches his hand with his own, panting, beads of sweat glistening in his hairline.

"Want you. Really want you."

There's a kind of urgency in Tyler's voice, and Josh isn't sure if he knows what exactly Tyler wants him to do, but then Tyler shuffles out of his underwear and pulls down Josh's too, and slender fingers wrap around his length and he's already whimpering with the heat overwhelming every fibre of his being.

"Make love to me", Tyler says, and Josh groans, rests his forehead against Tyler's, bucks his hips up helplessly.

"Never.. never done that", he admits shakily, barely able to get out a straight sentence, and Tyler stills.

"Let me show you", he says, and his hands guide Josh, press his fingers to the hot warmth down there, and Josh thinks he might be losing his mind. 

"Please", Tyler whimpers, grinding down needily onto Josh's finger, and it's so overwhelming to even think about that Josh just does as he's told, curls up his finger, pushes, lets Tyler's choked moans light his way, figures out the right spots as they go. By the time he has three fingers buried in Tyler they're both sticky with sweat and precum gathered in their belly buttons and between their entangled limbs. 

"Now", Tyler says, voice husky and rough with need, and Josh is so painfully hard he doesn't waste a second, just bucks up and forward and rolls his hips against Tyler, slow, loving. 

They never lose sight of each other, eyes locked, and Tyler's pupils are so blown that his eyes almost look black, and there's patches of pink dusting his cheekbones and his neck and his skin all the way down to his chest, and Josh thinks he looks like the most beautiful painting of a sunrise he's ever seen.

Their hips are rocking steady, albeit sloppy, and when Josh cups Tyler's cheek and tells him he loves him, he can almost see Tyler's climax before it happens. He almost feels like drowning, feels like he doesn't deserve to see this, never deserved to see this angelic boy shatter to nothingness with his eyes fluttering shut, with his thighs trembling against Josh's hips, biting down on dark red lips as he falls apart. 

Tyler is trying to catch his breath, hiccups, and he's clenching around Josh and that's enough to let him stumble over the edge too, and he's falling, falling, falling.

"I love you too", Tyler whispers into the silence, voice still shaky and choked, and Josh curls up against his chest, buries his nose in the curve of Tyler's neck, and for the first time, the exhaustion clinging to his bones isn't uncomfortable.

 

***

Something is different.

The door to Tyler's dad's room is closed, and there's a bunch of nurses in there, yelling, busy, hurried, rushing.

Tyler's nails are digging painfully into Josh's bicep, and they're both just staring, don't know what to do.

"He's fine, he's fine, he's fine, he's -" 

Tyler repeats his mantra over and over, never stops, breathless prayers that go unheard because moments later the door is being thrown open and the crowd of people spills out of the room, the bed with Tyler's dad in it in their middle, and there's a nurse on the bed, straddling across his chest, performing CPR.

"- fine."

Tyler stops, grows dead silent, and then he's running, and Josh is on his heels. 

"Fuck, fuck, fuck", he keeps panting, can't think straight, and all he can focus on is Tyler's yellow sweater disappearing behind the corner at the end of the corridor. It feels like his feet are suddenly a thousand pounds heavy, and he keeps dragging himself along, tries to catch up, can't do it. The hallway seems to be miles long, and Tyler's sweater is only a blurry shadow, so far away.

He stops, gives up for now. Slumps down to the ground, hugs his knees pulled close to his chest.

And so he waits, waits for Tyler to come back with bad news, with good news, with any news.

 

Hours later, Tyler finds him like that, half dizzy and half asleep, which is worrying on its own, but Tyler's face is a mess of tears and puffy red eyes and chapped lips from biting down too hard for too long.

"He -" 

"Shh."

Josh can barely get out the noise, but he pats a heavy hand onto the floor next to him. "Sit."

The word is slurred. Josh doesn't know what's happening.

"He needs me. He's not doing good. He needs me, Josh."

Tyler is begging, pleading, and Josh doesn't know for what. Should he let him go? Fine, he would if he could. But he isn't the one deciding who stays and who gets to wake up and who dies, he's just here, useless, alone, useless. And he's so tired, he thinks he might actually be falling asleep.

And then there's the light, soft and warm and bright in his peripheral vision, and now he knows what's happening. He's dying.

He can't die. Tyler needs him.

"Tyl-rr", he slurs, eyes now wide with panic even though he can barely make out silouettes, and Tyler gives him a confused look through the haze of his tears, and then he seems to pick up on what's happening all at once, and he's screaming.

"No! Josh, no! Don't you dare -"

He's being carried, carried by Tyler who's huffing and puffing under his weight, and there is his bed, and there are his parents and a doctor and a nurse and they all look so worried and on the edge, staring at the monitors, all of them flatlining. I'm dying, he thinks. I'm dying. 

Finally.

Tyler sits him down into the chair he's sat in so many times before. His hands are framing Josh's face, holding his limb head in place, his whole body slumping forward as Tyler holds him, holds him, forces him to keep his eyes open when he wants nothing more than to just close them for the last time. 

"You're not dying! You! Are! Not! Dying!"

It's so loud. Everything is so loud, and the light shining from behind Tyler is so warm, so welcoming, that he almost tries to crawl out of Tyler's hold to get closer to it. He just wants to sleep, wants it all to end. Just let me go, please, just let me find peace. I don't want to be here anymore.

Tyler's tear are everywhere, and Josh thinks he looks really sad, doesn't understand why. It's so warm, the light, he doesn't understand how anyone could be sad in its presence.

"...'s okay, Ty. Love you."

"No!", Tyler screams again, "you don't get to leave me now!", and then there's a stinging hand across his face with a forceful slap, and with a gasp, Josh inhales loudly. The monitors start beeping hysterically, his heart jumps and fights and stutters and then he's back, he's back, he's alive.

"Fucking hell!", Tyler chokes out, sinks to the ground, clings to Josh's trembling knees as he breaks down, and they're both trying to catch their breath when the voice of the doctor slowly sinks into their little bubble of fading desperation.

"He's breathing on his own. That's a good sign!"

Josh's parents exhale with relief, and his mother is crying and his dad is so happy that Josh is afraid he'll start doing a victory dance.

Tyler just looks tired.

"I'm sorry, Ty", Josh says, and he means it. The warm glow of the light and his desire to just sleep forever seem to be chased away as fast as they had appeared, are being replaced with his usual tiredness. He can deal with that. 

"We should go see your dad."

He can see Tyler's doubt as he carefully scrambles to his feet, pushes himself out of the chair on weak legs, but he manages a few steps with Tyler's help.

"Slow", Tyler warns, and they take their time, walking slowly to the ICU. 

They don't talk about what has just happened, and Josh is thankful for that.

 

***

 

Tyler's dad looks awful, tubes everywhere, multiple IVs, lots of monitors.

There's a nurse checking his vitals, and she shakes her head sadly. Not a good sign, Josh figures.

"He needs me", Tyler says again, and Josh still doesn't know what Tyler expects him to do.

"You know I'm not in charge here."

"I know. I'm just.. saying it. In case something happens."

"Something? You think you're simply going to wake up if you just want it bad enough?"

Josh's voice is venom, and Tyler flinches.

"No, I -"

"Hope isn't a good thing here, Tyler, you know that. You just saw it. It can be over anytime."

"I know."

Silence falls, and Josh regrets everything he's said.

"I'm sorry, Tyler, I don't know why I -"

The spot next to him is empty. 

 

Two stories beneath Josh, Tyler opens his eyes.

His throat is fighting the respirator tube, and he's choking around it. Doctors rush in. His grandparents are crying, his brother is crying, nurses are talking about a miracle. 

The boy in the bed next to him looks strangely familiar, and when Tyler leaves the hospital two weeks later, he says goodbye, even though the boy has never even moved an inch. 

Somehow he thinks he owes him that much.

 

***


	2. Chapter 2

Josh wakes up four months later, after almost a year in coma.

He's being released after five months of awful physical therapy that wears him down to the bone, but he fights, he struggles, he makes it.

He makes it.

***

There's a boy with mouse brown hair and delicate features sitting alone at a table across the room of his favorite café, and Josh just knows he has to say hi.

Shaky legs carry him, and when their eyes meet, the sudden bolt of memories pouring down on him almost has him on his knees. 

"Tyler", Josh says, and it's not a question.

"Josh", Tyler says, and it's a promise.


End file.
